Financial Organizations FINRA Compliance (Challenges/Solutions)

In an increasingly virtualized workforce, finance organizations are up against an increased challenge to keep client data protected and safe from malicious cybercriminals. We get questions all the time about how to keep data safe and compliant with regional and federal data security regulations.

In an increasingly virtualized workforce, finance organizations are up against an increased challenge to keep client data protected and safe from malicious cybercriminals. We get questions all the time about how to keep data safe and compliant with regional and federal data security regulations. Check out this informative breakdown about FINRA regulations to see if your organization is up to snuff.

Is Your Finance Organization FINRA Compliant?

Why every financial service organization should know FINRA protocols in and out

The finance sector – like the rest of the business world – is becoming increasingly digital and virtualized. This has allowed finance professionals to better service clients, handle requests more efficiently and improve the overall service experience they provide. Without a doubt, the virtual transformation is revolutionizing the finance sector.

However, this development comes increased security concerns. As masses of financial data is now stored digitally and virtually in the Cloud, confidential financial details are exposed to increased risk. This is no surprise to finance professionals who already understand the critical importance of making sure client data is stored securely. In fact, ensuring client data remains protected is likely the biggest responsibility that finance professionals are tasked with.

The importance of client data protection is so critical, that recent years have seen the development of endless regional, state and federal regulatory standards. These regulations are created for the sole purpose of ensuring financial service organizations are keeping client financial details private and securely stored. At both the industry and government level, efforts are being made to proactively secure the financial data of clients and hold financial service organizations accountable.

One of the latest regulatory developments comes directly from the financial services industry. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority recently released a series of data security regulations that apply to financial entities across the country. Let’s break down some background information before diving into details and compliance strategies.

So, What is FINRA? Exploring the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

FINRA or the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is a non-governmental, non-profit organization dedicated to investor protection and market integrity. The organization – authorized by US Congress – is committed to protecting American investors by making sure financial service industries are operating fairly and honestly.

FINRA is responsible for creating and enforcing a variety of rules and regulations that manage and govern the activities of all financial service industries in the country – specifically broker/dealer firms and registered broker entities. They also work to foster market transparency, educate investors and examine firms to ensure compliance.

Basically, if you’re a financial service organization OR a client or investor with a finance firm, FINRA regulations should be on your radar. FINRA plays a critical role in the American financial system by enforcing regulatory and ethical standards and providing critical resources and expertise to maintain market integrity.

Breaking It Down: What Finance Organizations Should Know about FINRA Regulations

So, for finance industry professionals, studying up on FINRA guidelines should be a top priority. In fact, financial service organizations should really hone in and determine which areas of regulatory standards most closely impact their clients and business. While FINRA sets a wide variety of market-integrity regulatory standards, let’s take a closer look at the top three areas of regulation that will impact the financial services sector.

Basic Investor Protections

Overall, FINRA operates in hopes of maintaining a regulated and trustworthy arena for investors, where financial privacy and vendor integrity is upheld. By instituting a variety of basic investor protection regulations, FINRA helps set the baseline standards for investor data protection and vendor ethics.

Tested, Qualified and Licensed Security Solutions

This section involves ensuring that the security and data protection solutions being used and promoted by financial service organizations are adequate. This means ensuring that security solutions have been appropriately tested and are sufficiently qualified and licensed. This way, investors can know that their data protection has been stamped with FINRA approval.

Integrity and Complete Disclosure

Finally, FINRA is committed to holding financial service organizations to high standards in terms of integrity and disclosure. This means that finance organizations should only engage in fair and legitimate investment opportunities and should be completely transparent about any potential risks – including data protection concerns.

Staying Secure and Compliant: A Checklist for Upholding FINRA Regulations

With so many considerations to be made and so many different regulatory bodies to comply with, FINRA compliance can seem like a tedious and overwhelming task. Trying to handle everyday business tasks while ensuring regulations are maintained and complied with can be an uphill battle.

That’s why we’ve created a fool-proof checklist for seamless compliance with FINRA security guidelines. We created this checklist in hopes of providing a reliable resource for finance professionals that will make compliance concerns disappear.

The checklist is comprehensive and designed specifically to help finance organizations ensure their technology is FINRA compliant. The checklist has a wealth of resources and information and can be explored by section so that professionals have a clear idea of what’s expected. Our goal with this checklist is to help finance professionals avoid any surprises when it comes to compliance. By getting to know the bones of the FINRA security guidelines, business professionals won’t be blindsided.

The checklist is built in Excel and is set up for any professional to populate the file with their own data. This easy to use and interactive checklist is the perfect solution for finance organizations looking to get a better handle on FINRA compliance. Don’t fumble through Google searches trying to understand FINRA regulations. Let us do the legwork for you.

Even better? The checklist provides a large collection of links to critical FINRA information. These links include supporting regulatory documents and a wealth of resources for identifying risks, protecting system data, access control, penetration testing, managing vendor data sharing and much more.